Federal Court Partially Lifts Ban on Biden Administration’s COVID Vaccine Mandate for Contractors
A U.S. court has lifted part of the ban on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, finding a lower court went too far in blocking the vaccination requirements across the nation—but also predicting that the challenge to the mandate will probably succeed.
U.S. District Judge R. Stan Baker, a Trump appointee, in December 2021 blocked President Joe Biden’s mandate in all 50 states, finding the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act likely does not give Biden the power to issue such mandates.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Aug. 26 that it was correct to block the mandate in some states, but not all.
One of the plaintiffs, Associated Builders and Contractors, has workers all over the country, Baker said, necessitating a nationwide preliminary injunction.
“Stretching logic, the court reasoned that if it ‘were to enjoin the enforcement of the mandate only in the Southern District of Georgia or only in Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia,’ then “members would not have injunctive relief as to covered contracts in other states.’ But injunctive relief operates on specific parties, not geographic territories, and identifying the plaintiff States and trade association members is possible,” the appeals court panel said.
“The district court’s other reason for a nationwide remedy was that narrower relief ‘would prove unwieldy and would only cause more confusion.’ This statement is ambiguous: it may reflect either the lack of uniformity that would result from a well-tailored injunction, or the difficulty of structuring an injunction that allows enforcement against nonparties while still providing relief to the plaintiffs. The former is an inappropriate consideration, and the latter is unsupported by the district court’s analysis or the record,” the panel added.
Its decision rolls back the nationwide injunction, only keeping it in
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